New members of the West Clermont school board Mark Merchant, from left, Steve Waldmann and Jim Lewis take the oath last week. / The Enquirer/Amanda Rossmann

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Radical School Boards: Tea Party members gain school board power

School board candidates needn’t declare party

In Ohio, school board candidates are not required to list a party or other political affiliation on the ballot. Candidates who win seats on Southwest Ohio’s 48 five-seat school boards – Cincinnati Public Schools and other large districts have seven-member boards – decide individually whether they want to announce their affiliation or sympathies toward a political party or movement.

Anti-school tax activists mostly have held single seats

In the last decade a handful of Southwest Ohio’s 49 school boards have seen voters choose a single member who refused to consider any hike in school taxes and actively pushed – though always unsuccessfully – for cuts in their district’s operating budgets and payrolls. Their lone stances were often rendered symbolic. Butler County’s Fairfield and Monroe schools; Warren County’s Mason, Kings and Little Miami schools; Hamilton County’s Northwest school board; and West Clermont schools in Clermont County have featured single anti-tax members.

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UNION TWP. — The political landscape among local school boards may be changing.

For the first time in the region, candidates who go by a variety of self-applied labels – fiscal conservatives, anti-tax activists, tea party activists – have won what appear to be majorities on local school boards and wield wide control over school policy choices and millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

That has some residents worried that these new board members may be philosophically opposed to the way public schools have been traditionally operated and funded.

Some just-seated board members have already announced they will oppose the new Common Core standards being implemented in Ohio.

Others say they will oppose any tax hikes for new programs and raises for school employees.

Area tea party officials said they suspect other suburban boards will reveal new majorities and anti-tax agendas, but for now the West Clermont school board is the most visible flashpoint.

Kings Schools in Warren County, which holds its first full board meeting Tuesday, may flare up next.

“School communities are not exempt from the partisan divide that we see in national, state and local issues,” Damon Asbury, director of legislative services for the Ohio School Boards Association, said.

“On occasion, that divide can show up in board elections, and one philosophy may prevail over another,” he said. “Boards have always had to face these difficult issues, whether they be over fiscal issues, choice of instructional approach or materials or other matters.”

Politics or good government? Question reaches boards

In the last decade, at least nine of Southwest Ohio’s 49 school districts – most in Greater Cincinnati’s northern suburban school systems – have included an anti-tax activist, although they were rendered largely ineffectual due to their minority status on the boards.

But Kelly Kohls, a county tea party official who retired from Warren County’s Springboro school board and now heads the conservative Ohio School Boards Leadership Council, predicts West Clermont and Kings are the beginning of a wave of “conservative makeovers” for Southwest Ohio boards.

Kohls said she is getting calls from like-minded board members across the state and predicts two other Clermont County districts will eventually show themselves to be like West Clermont.

“This is the awakening I am seeing, that people realize government – schools included – are serving themselves first and the people second.”

Still, the trend is not a welcome one for some school parents.

“We’re really worried what (the West Clermont board’s) plans are for us in the future,” West Clermont resident Tony Brown said. “They have already said they are not going to put any more levies on the ballot for us because it doesn’t agree with their political agenda.

“For them it’s a political thing, but for us it’s our children,” said Brown, father of a student in the Clermont County district.

The first meeting of the new board last week was preceded by a pre-meeting rally of concerned residents, who then marched en masse into a packed meeting room, outnumbering board supporters and forcing an overflow crowd into the hall.

Some sharply criticized the three new board members just minutes after they were sworn into office.

“Please check your politics at the door,” one speaker said.

“What are you going to do about West Clermont’s reputation of crisis?” asked another.

“You represent the whole community, not just those that voted for you,” warned another.

“They wanted to hang us in effigy before we have done anything,” said new board member Jim Lewis, who proudly proclaims his tea party affiliation on the school board’s website.

Lewis joins tea party members Mark Merchant and Tina Sanborn in the majority faction of the five-member board. And newly elected Steve Waldmann has not stated an affiliation with the tea party, but the group endorsed his candidacy last fall.

“We don’t even need him (Waldmann)” to pass board actions, Lewis said. “But it is because of the tea party he is here, and I expect he’ll be on our side 70-75 percent of the time.”

On Kings board, COAST official wields new power

In Warren County, Kim Grant, an official with the anti-tax group COAST – which previously sued Kings schools for access to public records – was recently elected to the board.

And Grant has her own history with the district – she has sued over public records access and publicly criticized Kings officials for allegedly hiding air quality issues in the schools and wasting taxpayer money.

But she showed her authority on the board earlier this month in an unusual vote alignment for board president and vice president. Local board votes for these officers tend to be unanimous decisions in favor of veteran members winning the top two positions.

This time, after Grant-nominated board member William Russell was unanimously chosen as board president, a rare 3-2 vote followed for vice president, with Grant’s favorite Robert Hinman becoming second in command.

Longtime Kings resident Roseann Siderits was glad to see Grant flex her political muscle.

“It’s revolutionary here,” she said. “(Grant) is a big fiscal conservative and very interested in budget issues, and a lot of voters think this is good.”

Asbury said politics has and will continue to shift power on local school boards.

“It’s one of the strengths of our American system that the voters have the power to elect those who will carry out the will of the people,” he said. “When the pendulum swings too far one way or the other, the community and voters can take action to change that direction.”

Still, recently retired Lakota school board President Joan Powell – a 16-year board veteran and one of the most influential school officials in the region during her tenure – wonders whether the publicly stated goals of some new board members match their political agendas.

“Unfortunately some of these individuals are not just interested in reducing expenses and maintaining taxes at their current level. There are those that have a goal to destroy public education as it exists – government schools, they call them – and use anti-tax and pro-voucher issues to reduce funding to schools to help reach that goal,” she said.

“A lot of damage can be done during a four-year term. By then voters should know what they stand for and whether (board members) are working in the best interests of the school district and the voters.”

Sue Kiesewetter contributed.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly noted that William Russell was a newly elected board member. He was elected in 2011.